'Twas The Night Before IPO

'Twas the day before the IPO, when all through the net,
Not an executive was flying, not even Ellison's jet.
The documents were filed with the SEC with care,
In hopes that the IPO soon would be there.

Techies were nestled all snug by their screens,
While visions of liquidity danced in their dreams.
The CEO with a reporter and PR at his side,
The press tour just concluded a cross-country ride.

When out on the web there arose such a clatter,
I surfed to the stock ticker to see what was the matter.
To eTrade, my Mac flew like a flash,
The market made a slight correction, it started to crash!!

I gasped at the thought and started to grouse,
"Must I sell my SUV, what about the house?"
When what to my wondering eyes would appear,
An email from the CEO that was quite clear.

I knew in a moment what he had to say,
It had to do with the crash that happened that day.
More rapid then VC money and Napster fame,
Another Dotcom Bomb and he called them by name;

"Now Pets! Now Petopia! It was plain to see,
Garden and Eve!" Oh God, why is this happening to me?
"We spent and we spent, with no revenue in site!
Be 'sticky', capture eyeballs, VC's shouted all night."

"As fast as we filed, the IPO was pulled,"
On CNBC our story will be told.
B2C, B2B, P2P changed with a flicker,
No company was spared on the stock ticker.

And then, in a twinkle, we were off raising a round.
Searching and searching, no money to be found.
Don't count on series E, no money, no loan,
The end was quite near, we started to moan.

No more launch parties, and Super Bowl ads,
Pink slips and revenue became the fads.
The dot com frenzy - how it glimmered! The days were so merry!
The stock options how rosy, the payoff so cherry!

From Yahoo! to Amazon, they started it all,
Who would think, "The stock market, fall?"
We were chubby and plump, a right jolly ole folk,
We laughed when we heard, 'Our start-up going broke?'

A wink of the eye and a twist of fate,
We realized our start-up entered the market too late.
We spoke not a word, but overcome with grief,
As we watched the market close in disbelief.

The CEO sprang to his team, and gave a whistle,
Away we were, laid-off like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, as we drove off that night,
'www.FailedDotcoms.com will be our next site!'